


Bound To The Rock, An Eagle Eating Your Liver

by seriousfic



Category: Prometheus (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Pre-Slash, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seriousfic/pseuds/seriousfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that her father's dead, Meredith Vickers owns Weyland Industries, the Prometheus expedition, David 8, and Elizabeth Shaw's contract. And if they've gotten an Engineer starship working, then it's taking them home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bound To The Rock, An Eagle Eating Your Liver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beckymonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beckymonster/gifts).



"Is anyone left? I need help. _Respond._ "

 

Shaw looked heavenward, as if the voice could be coming from there. A moment ago she'd been alone, grateful for even the company of David, and now here was another human voice. It seemed miraculous until she registered it.

 

"Vickers?" she called through the intercom.

 

"I'm running out of air," the woman answered.

 

Running out turned out to mean she had fourteen minutes left. It was a five minute ride on the rover, then three minutes to find Vickers pinned under an unidentifiable piece of alien technology. Her legs disappeared between the soil and the wreck, while her faceplate was so cracked that it amazed Shaw she was still breathing. It wasn't a surprise that Vickers was feeling uncharitable.

 

"That took a while," Vickers said, softly acidic. "Praying for guidance?"

 

"Filling a second air tank." Shaw showed it off before attaching it to Vickers' rebreather system. "That should give us enough time to dig you out." Shaw looked over the impact. It was a classic archaeological problem—a question of excavation. She just had to dig a space under Vickers and slide her out.

 

"I can't feel my legs." Vickers waited until Shaw was back at the rover, getting a shovel, to bring it up.

 

"Just a loss of circulation. It'll clear up."

 

" _I think_ it'd be best if you got me in the med-pod as soon as possible."

 

"That could be a problem. Hold still." Shaw stabbed the head of the shovel into the dirt under Vickers, digging out a space for Vickers to fall into.

 

"What would be the problem?" Vickers' tone made it clear she expected it would be on Shaw's end.

 

Shaw rolled her eyes. "Well, you remember the creature your android put in me? The last time I saw it, it was fighting with the alien your father thought would make a good doctor. In the lifeboat."

 

Vickers grabbed the shovel. "So there are two separate alien species in _my_ lifeboat?"

 

"I'm sure one's dead by now," Shaw comforted. "Hold still, you're almost out."

 

"Fantastic. I can stretch my legs before we run out of air."

 

Shaw linked her arms under Vickers and pulled, getting a leg free. The debris on top of Vickers shifted threateningly, or maybe it was just a trick of the eye. Shaw hurriedly clawed under Vickers' still-trapped leg. "There are other ships."

 

"Ones you can fly? You can fly their ships, but you can't tell the difference between a weapons plant and a residential neighborhood?"

 

"David can fly it," Shaw said, lips buttoned with exasperation.

 

"He's still around?"

 

"Yes."

 

"And there are monsters in my bedroom."

 

"Yes."

 

"Weyland's still dead, though?"

 

"I'm sorry."

 

"Still dead. Thank God."

 

"Don't blaspheme."

 

The stare Vickers fixed her with was almost amused. "It's blasphemy to be gracious?"

 

"It is when someone's dead."

 

"Oh, right. You were orphaned at a _young_ age."

 

Shaw stopped and pulled Vickers clear, leaving her lying on the ground. "Tell me when you can wiggle your toes."

 

After a few minutes, Vickers was walking, then pacing frantically. She seemed to have a limp, but Shaw wouldn't comment. Vickers was in her own little world and Shaw wondered how to break the next part to her. She saw herself walking over and grabbing Vickers, or standing in her way, or just trying to keep up. Instead, she sat down at the rover and watched Shaw until she slowed down. Then she said "We're not going home."

 

Vickers waved her off without a thought. "Don't be idiotic."

 

"David can take us to the Engineers' world. We can find out why they created us. Why they changed their minds."

 

"And then you can ask a rapist what he thinks is prettiest about you. No. We're going back." She looked out at the wreckage. "These ships are game-changers. We bring one back and we'll revolutionize the world overnight." Vickers's voice turned gracious, at least for her. "I won't forget what you've done for me. You can hand-pick a team and go over the thing with a fine-toothed comb." Bribery.

 

"And wait for them to send another ship to Earth? Did you see what one drop of their toxin did to me?"

 

"This isn't a discussion. Weyland's dead. I now own this company, the android, the expedition, and all its findings. I say we're going home. If you don't like it, you can take it up with the next ship that comes along."

 

* * *

 

 

Shaw drove Vickers back to the ship she'd commandeered, feeling the oddest fatigue. When David had told her there'd been other ships, she'd been energized. Her questions were an adrenaline high, blocking out all that had happened to her. The answers were right around the corner. But now that the way was blocked…

 

God, Charlie…

 

* * *

 

 

The ship was a marvel of engineering. Not as Spartan as the other one, but dotted with strange statues. Creatures with wings that Shaw thought of as angels, ones with horns she thought of as devils. Both were slicked with the same aerodynamic blend of technology and life, displays in the same zoo. Walking around them, Shaw had the unpleasant feeling of being watched. Were they more of the Engineers' creations? Her cousins, brothers? Predecessors? Successors?

 

There was only one way to know and Vickers wasn't interested. In fact, she walked right through the ship, callously ignoring the grandeur of it, the artisanship equal to any cathedral. One hand held a flashlight, the other a small personal defense pod. Shaw had seen her set it to level-five lethality. If she tased someone with it, they'd damn well explode.

 

It was a long walk to the bridge, at least for children in a world built for giants. Shaw would've left Vickers behind, beat her to the bridge at a fast gait, but now that she had company, she didn't want to be alone. And she wasn't convinced there wasn't internal bleeding. Vickers might drop, needing assistance, at any moment. She tried not to think that the same might be true of her.

 

She spoke, trying to keep it from being awkward. "Why didn't you get along with Weyland? He was your father, after all."

 

Vickers' sigh was audible even without the com. She'd kept her helmet on, sucking what little air was left in the system before she submitted herself to the alien atmosphere. "'After all'. Do you really want to know, or do you think that if we're best friends, I'll give you what you want?"

 

"I really want to know," Shaw contended, with a vein of bitterness running through her words no matter how hard she tried to filter it out. "I'd like to find out at least one thing from this expedition."

 

Vickers laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "He spent a trillion dollars on _hope_. Do you know how many children a trillion could feed?"

 

"Do you?"

 

Vickers paused, favoring her injured leg as she faced Shaw. No way of knowing if she was truly offended or just needed an excuse to rest. "In my capacity as Senior Vice President, Weyland Industries has given hundreds of millions of dollars to the poor, the hungry, the underfunded Little League teams. It's fantastic publicity."

 

"And looks good on your tax forms."

 

"That too," Vickers conceded with a magnanimous glint in her eye. _Now you're getting it._ "I won't pretend to be running a charity. But I am good at my job, and I've earned a spot at the head of the table."

 

Vickers's suit beeped with annoying persistence. She swore with surprising venom, given the usual velvet glove on the iron fist, and popped her helmet, letting it dangle down her back like a jacket's hood. She breathed in and didn't look too happy about it, consoling herself by pulling a flask from a pouch on her suit. Shaw raised an eyebrow as she unscrewed its cap. The smell of whiskey was overwhelming in the long-dead sterility of the ship.

 

Vickers continued as soon as she'd imbibed. "Every parent in history has given their child one simple present. They've died. My father had a century to build a legacy. He had _me_ to carry on. And yet he couldn't do that one simple thing. He spent _years_ in that damn cryo-pod, holding his life over my head. Making me his errand girl, taking the credit for every point the stock went up when all he did was approve a budget every six months."

 

"How long did it take love to turn to hate?" Shaw wondered aloud.

 

Vickers smiled. Viciously, Shaw thought. "Not long, Dr. Shaw. Not long at all. If you ever have a chance to die in bed, old and wizened, surrounded by family… I suggest you take it. If you're not willing to let go, they will be."

 

She moved on. It took Shaw a moment to catch up. Before she had time to think of another tack, they were on the bridge. David was right where she left him, both pieces of him. His head was perched on the control console that dominated the room like the round table in Camelot, coming up to chest-level. Vickers looked from his head on the console to his body on the floor, her disdain increasing at the latter.

 

"Ms. Shaw," David greeted, his fractured voice now trilling like a Christmas greeting card. "I hadn't thought you were still alive. I suppose I underestimated your survival instinct."

 

"If it make you feel better, I dug her out," Shaw added wryly.

 

"Ah. That was certainly a _moral_ course of action…"

 

Vickers had found what amounted to a captain's chair. It towered over her, so she simply sat down on the floor and leaned against its base, stripping off her gloves. "Save it," she snapped at David, her attention swiveling to Shaw. "Now that you don't need him for conversation, mind if I set him in text mode? I've been wanting to for years."

 

"He's at least earned the right to speak for himself."

 

David smiled sunnily. The expression, coming from atop a severed neck, was surreal. "Thank _you,_ Dr. Shaw. Perhaps, seeing as I will be charting our course, your gratitude would extend to fixing my present condition? I find it… demeaning, not to be of full service."

 

"He stays a paperweight," Vickers said curtly.

 

David looked at Shaw like a child who hadn't gotten permission from one parent and now sought to wheedle it from another. Shaw met his eyes bemusedly. "She's the boss."

 

"Very well. I take it our destination is Earth?"

 

"How did you—"

 

"Ms. Vickers is a very commanding sort, and not very curious. She'll be quite satisfied returning home with some of her parental issues resolved. And you, by contrast, aren't willing to cross certain ethical lines to achieve your goals. Although I have been mistaken about you before. Perhaps a swift blow to the back of the head, a relocation to one of the Engineers' sleeping pods, and we can wake her when we return to Earth, assuming we don't both perish in one of several possible ways upon making contact with your makers?"

 

"I'm right here," Vickers said. She tucked her gloves into her belt, but wasn't willing to part with any more of her suit's protection.

 

"Ah." The syllable was elongated by David's damage, trailing off slowly. It made him sound oddly satisfied. "Apologies. I think perhaps my compromised status might be affecting my computing processes. If repairs were made—"

 

"Shut up," Vickers told him. She gave Shaw a 'can you believe this guy?' look so… _human_ that the doctor was actually taken aback a little, mouth twitching up in some odd sympathy. Like a grin, almost. "God, he's mouthy."

 

"You have no idea," Shaw replied.

 

* * *

 

 

David and Shaw had been working through powering the ship up when she'd heard Vickers's distress. Without her, it'd been what Shaw could laughably describe as a religious experience—at least what passed for one with her these days. Every step of the way, she'd thought of the Engineers, using this same technology, performing the same arcane rituals. Trying to project herself back through untold eons, to look through space and time with the eyes of a mock-god. It was pathetic, really. Faced with creatures who loathed her kind to the point of genocide, she sought only to understand them. To ask why. But she couldn't help herself. She was a scientist. It was all she had left. She wasn't a wife anymore, after all. And she'd never be a mother.

 

With Vickers, she sped through the process. David called out the progression of events and Shaw confirmed it was done, with all the deliberateness and ritual of a game of bingo. When David paused to think over a tricky bit, Shaw was actually relieved. They were unlocking the secrets of the universe. It shouldn't be rushed through.

 

"Ah, yes." Some trick of David's diversion of function had left him with a temporary lisp. He didn't appear to notice, although a knot in his perfectly smooth forehead put the lie to that. He paused dramatically, trying to shuffle around his computing processes to correct the problem, but when he spoke next, his Ses were as sibilant as a snake. "The next part is comparable to one of your military officers arming a nuclear weapon, although far less destructive… so we hope. I'll need one of the Engineers' wind instruments. It should be _readily_ identifiable," he concluded, with a condescending smile showing his trust that even lowly humans could find one.

 

A quick search turned up a flute-like object in a corner, remarkably sturdy after all those years. Shaw cleaned it off carefully, which Vickers didn't care for. She paced, fingers twitching before allowing herself another nip from her flask. Shaw pegged her as an off-hours hedonist. 'Work hard, play hard,' as Charlie would put it, somewhat enviously. He hadn't married Shaw for her clubbing prowess.

 

No. No, don't go there, Shaw told herself. Go there and you die.

 

Her much-commented-on survival instinct came through again, even when the alternative was only _feeling_ as if she'd died. It still worked its magic, focusing her totally on the shiny little flute in her hands.

 

"It's as clean as it's going to get," she announced.

 

Vickers gleefully tucked her twitching hands away before she could tempt herself into one more drink. "Finally. Hold it up to David."

 

David and Shaw traded a glance, David removed as ever, Shaw disquieted. She'd done worse, harder things in the past twenty-four hours, but for no real reason, this seemed like too much. "It's demeaning."

 

"Would you like to tape it onto him? Just get on with it."

 

"It's demeaning," Shaw repeated. "Why don't you do it?"

 

"Because I'm asking you to," Vickers rallied after a moment, pausing as if amazed at the gall of Shaw challenging her.

 

Shaw stared at her. The woman who'd stayed safe and sound on the ship while she'd risked everything, lost everything, doing her dirty work. The woman who'd imperiously seized control of the expedition, _her_ expedition, the sum of her blood and sweat and tears.

 

"Say please," Shaw said finally.

 

"What?"

 

"You heard me," Shaw replied, considering speaking into Vickers's com just to rub it in. "Say. Please."

 

Vickers shook her head, making a production of herself as long-suffering rich bitch before looking Shaw in the eye. "Would you please hold the damn kazoo for David? He's a fucking head."

 

Shaw walked over to David and extravagantly popped the flute into his mouth. When Vickers rolled her eyes, she cleared her throat.

 

"Thank you!" Vickers added, crossing her arms.

 

Shaw exhaled a deep breath. David, for his part, played a slight tune that made the atmosphere in the room change, sent some ineffable energy through the ship. The floor hummed, not vibrating, but somehow in motion, and it came as a shock when it quieted again a moment later.

 

"Ah," David exclaimed, almost a cough. "A faulty circuit, as you might characterize it. I'll try to engage the automatic repair. It's quite advanced." He looked to Shaw, who looked to Vickers, who took a moment to understand.

 

"For fuck's sake, next time I'll hold his damn whistle. _Please._ "

 

"It's simple manners," Shaw said as she held the flute to David's mouth once more.

 

* * *

 

 

It worked, blessedly, the ship seeming to _roll_ back and forth in some minute, disconcerting way as it was repaired. As soon as David reported his success, Shaw tossed the flute to Vickers and went to be alone. David had explained to her where the food stores were located, and that they were completely edible, as soon as she'd come onboard. If Vickers wanted to find out, let her play twenty questions with the android.

 

The Engineers' food, or emergency rations, or leftovers, was something between a honeycomb and cornbread. It reminded Shaw of a religious lecture she'd gone to once, eating foods prepared according to Old Testament custom. One crazed-looking student had claimed he'd exactly replicated manna, accounting for a tornado that would've sucked a number of grains and plant life together and blended them somehow into a sort of edible snowflake. It had tinged Shaw's bullshit sensor enough that she'd decided never to share the anecdote with Charlie, lest he never let her hear the end of it. He'd always tried to be sensitive to his beliefs, but there was only so polite his sense of humor would allow him to be.

 

But damn if the stuff didn't taste like the manna of her long-gone college years.

 

The longer she spent alone, the more tasteless the food became. She gathered a second of the little cells the food came in and walked back to the bridge, where she was mostly unsurprised to find David's head left alone. With a little prompting, he told her where Vickers had gone. The other woman had begrudgingly announced her destination before leaving; basic survival instinct. Shaw found her just down the hall from the bridge, in some sort of observation deck—statues were posed so it appeared as if they were lifting up and cradling the massive window that looked out at the barren planet. All that work for such a lousy view.

 

Vickers didn't seem to care for it either. She'd stripped down to a pair of jockey shorts and was wrapping up the leg she'd been favoring all day. Shaw had been to enough remote locales and seen enough accidents to recognize someone setting their leg. It made her wonder when Vickers had realized she'd broken… what… an ankle?

 

Maybe the alcohol hadn't just been a defense mechanism.

 

Meredith sensed her by the same intuition that always let you know you know you weren't alone when you wanted to be. "I traveled light years and spent a trillion dollars on my father's funeral. Lay off. I'm in mourning."

 

"I brought food," Shaw said, dropping it to the floor and kicking it Vickers's way. Vickers looked it over before returning to her leg. Maybe she didn't have an appetite. Shaw couldn't blame her.

 

She turned to leave.

 

"Do you pray for me, Elizabeth?"

 

Shaw didn't turn around. "I pray for the dead."

 

"Not quite an answer."

 

"What were you expecting?"

 

"Some… last-ditch attempt to save my soul."

 

"I wasn't aware it was in danger."

 

"Very gracious of you."

 

Shaw sighed. She had the feeling that wherever Charlie had ended up, whatever Limbo or Purgatory had been waiting for him since she'd failed to share with him what she knew in her heart… her husband was laughing.

 

She turned around. It gratified her a little that Vickers hadn't been the first to look back. She was still looking at her foot, the damn thing starting to swell up like a balloon.

 

"Have you ever set a bone before?"

 

Vickers gritted her teeth. "Corporate retreat. We learned all kinds of useless things."

 

"Did you actually _do it_?"

 

"No," Vickers hissed, as if mentioning that hurt. It was probably just her attempt to wiggle her toes.

 

"Hold still," Shaw ordered, stomping her way to Vickers's side, kneeling down to face her. "And try to keep the commentary to a minimum."

 

Vickers mimed zipping her lips as insolently as possible.

 

The cast looked like good work. Shaw didn't want to mess with it overly. She checked the foot for tenderness, gently prodding in a few key spots. It was hard work; Vickers wouldn't admit to pain if a nail were driven through her palm. But they worked out a little system of communication, Shaw looking in her eyes, Vickers blinking rapidly when she was hurting.

 

"Seems like a minor fracture," Shaw said. "I've seen workers screaming their heads off with worse. Did you scan it?"

 

Vickers pulled a medical scanner from her pocket, a CT scan still on the read-out. It was amazing how sardonic a gesture could be.

 

"A simple 'yes' would do."

 

"Do you want me to keep quiet or do you want me to tell you my life story?"

 

"Find the middle ground," Shaw advised her. "I think your toe's been fractured as well. I'll need to tape it down."

 

"Praise Jesus."

 

Shaw stuffed a piece of gauze between toes before taping them together, trying not to enjoy the discomfort it caused. Finally, she backed away, her hands stuck together as if beseeching. "There. It should heal as neat as you please in cryo-sleep."

 

"I suppose I should thank you."

 

"Oh, please don't. It's such a cliché."

 

" _Thank you,"_ Vickers said richly, enunciating every syllable. "There. The mean lady appreciates you. Now you can die happy."

 

Shaw stood. Her back was sore from all the time she'd spent bent over Vickers. Grudgingly, she cracked it, tilting her head from side to side, the bones there popping too. Everything ached, everything was tired. Yet she knew she couldn't sleep. The promise of the Engineers' world had driven her too far for anything else to suffice. She'd made peace that the only rest she would get was in a hypersleep chamber, on the way to their world. God only knew what she'd do now that that wasn't an option. Stay awake, she guessed. Spare herself the nightmares.

 

Vickers just stayed on the ground, staring at her mummified foot like she expected a surprise from it.

 

"You could've just told me your foot hurt," Shaw said. "I would've helped you support your weight."

 

"I didn't need you to."

 

"Yeah. Now that you’ve proven that, let me help you next time. Whatever validation you want, I don't have."

 

Dismally, Vickers held her hand up. Shaw took it and helped her to her feet. Vickers set off for the bridge, bearing the weight herself. Shaw followed along in case Vickers fell.

 

* * *

 

 

They dozed on the bridge, safety in numbers, even if the third member of their party barely had a neck. Vickers sat against the wall, almost seeming to meditate, while Shaw curled up under the console. If she listened hard, she could hear the alien circuits at their ancient work. It sounded like crickets.

 

Hours passed, deep and dreamless.

 

"I'm sorry about your husband. He seemed like a good man. Better than any I knew."

 

Shaw blinked until she was awake. She didn't quite believe Vickers had spoken to her, but when Shaw looked her way and saw that captain of industry stare coming back at her, she conceded it.

 

Then she realized what Vickers had said and it came rushing in. Not a dream. Not a nightmare. The cold, heavy past. She could still feel the scar of it on her belly.

 

"He wasn't," Shaw said, hanging her head not so much because of an emotion; she wasn't sure she could feel anything. She just couldn't bear to lift it. "He was no better than Janek or Chance or… probably any of the others I didn't get a chance to know. But he was mine. I loved him."

 

"Is that why you want to track the Engineers? Because it's what he would've wanted?"

 

"No. I want to go to the Engineers' world to ask them why Charlie had to die. And if I don't like their answer a whole lot, I want to give them a taste of their own medicine."

 

The ship might not've been like the other one, but it had the same cargo. A hold full of urns, lined up as neatly as headstones in a graveyard. Shaw didn't know how many it would take to end a world. She planned on using them all, not leaving one left for anyone else to stumble upon. Kill two birds with one stone.

 

"I can see why Weyland liked you," Vickers commented, dry as everything on this dead world.

 

"And is that why you don't?"

 

"I like you just fine," she confessed.

 

"You have a funny way of showing it."

 

"Yes. Yes, I suppose I do."

 

"The quality of mercy is not strain'd," David quoted grandiosely. Awake as always. "It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven…"

 

"Shut up," they both told him.

 

* * *

 

 

"All repairs completed," David announced, as pleasant as a florist confirming an order. Then, a touch louder: "We may launch at your pleasure, Ms. Vickers."

 

Vickers was too dignified to groan herself awake. Shaw didn't share that problem. She yawned her way up, surprised at how soundly she'd slept. The last thing she remembered—Vickers lying across from her, as awake as she was. Like it was a competition.

 

"You couldn't have told us this in the morning?" Vickers asked, checking her chronometer. Remembering that the night here was seventeen hours long, she corrected herself: "When we woke up?"

 

"My apologies for inconveniencing the two of you, but I thought you might be eager to leave. I have recently detected life on the surface, within a fifty-kilometer radius of us…"

 

Shaw jerked bolt upright, joined by Vickers. They shared a look, and the same thought: observation deck. But Shaw was the one who remembered to grab David as they ran.

 

"Would either of you care to know how many thousands of man-hours went into my development?" David asked like a party guest launching into an anecdote, head tucked under Shaw's arm like a football.

 

"How far out is it?" Vickers demanded, which David took as a no.

 

"Is it one of ours?" Shaw added.

 

"As I said, it is roughly fifty kilometers out, although it is moving at an impressive speed…  a hundred kilometers per hour, although that may not be its top speed, but merely as fast as it can manage on admittedly rough terrain. I would note that this velocity would seem to rule out yet another _human_ survivor."

 

"Is it coming from the direction of the life boat?" Shaw asked.

 

"Very astute, Dr. Shaw."

 

"The creature… the Engineer… the last time I saw them, they were trying to kill each other."

 

"And now it's our turn," Vickers noted, the pain of her limping gait making her break out in a sweat. Shaw knew she wouldn't hear of stopping until they got to the observation deck. Fortunately, it was a short walk.

 

They burst in and saw it, first thing in the distance, a black speck moving so fast it was kicking up dirt, a vast shroud of it like a reaper's cloak. It was coming at them so quickly that it seemed to be growing, as rapidly as it had in Shaw's body. She knew it had to be that monster, or something that had come of it, a thing passed down like a sin from father to son.

 

"Why didn't you tell us earlier?" Vickers demanded of David, still in corporate mode, wanting to point fingers.

 

Shaw lowered David to her side, holding onto his hair with white knuckles. He spoke softly as he swayed there. "With the ship inoperative, there was little you could do besides cause yourselves unnecessary stress. As you yourself implied earlier, you need your rest. But now that we are operational, fleeing is quite possible, and highly recommended."

 

"Get us off the ground," Shaw said, tightly controlled panic in her voice. She didn't want to be within reach of that thing. She didn't want to be on the same planet as it.

 

"If that's your decision, there is a minor complication…"

 

Without waiting to hear it, Shaw crammed David under her arm again. She spoke rapidly to Vickers. "Get to the bridge and stay there. I'll get us up and running. As soon as I do, get us up. Trust me, you don't know what this thing can do."

 

"I don't want to find out," Vickers assured her, already limping back to the bridge. Now free to speak, David babbled directions. Down the spiral ramp, through two intersecting corridors, up a set of stairs with each step coming up to her waist. She tossed David's head to the top and climbed, the straining stitches in her abdomen rebelling against the pain pills she'd been taking.

 

"This may be forward of me," David said from the top step, his head rolling to a stop. "But would this be sufficient labor to justify repairing me? As an artificial person, I have no personal preference, of course, but this is exactly the type of situation where being fully autonomous would be of great benefit to our endeavors."

 

"Shut—" Panting, Elizabeth rolled onto the top step next to him. "—up. What's next?"

 

"Look at the walls. Two of what you might refer to as 'ribs' have been disconnected. If you could line them up again, contact with main control would be restored, and Ms. Vickers could shut off the offending…" David's brow furrowed in consternation. "Hmm. I can't manage a proper translation. Functionally, I suppose you'd call it a 'parking brake'."

 

Shaw laughed hysterically as she traced her flashlight over the walls. "Parking brake? We're going to be eaten alive because someone left the parking brake on?"

 

"That's a pessimistic way of looking at it."

 

Both their coms crackled, a tinny rendition in David's ear and a fuller audio stream from Shaw's suit. Vickers. "I'm on the bridge. There are a lot of lights flashing orange."

 

"That would be a symbol for caution," David explained, his voice in the back of Shaw's head as she slashed her flashlight through the air, looking for the tiniest break in the seamless lines surrounding her. "Another intriguing similarity between your two cultures."

 

Vickers sounded unimpressed. "I'd say it's the ship's way of telling us that whatever that thing is, it's close."

 

David again: "Given its prior speed, I'm surprised it hasn't already—"

 

A dull but loud thud of metal on metal echoed through the ship, so far off that it was impossible to pinpoint where it had come from. Shaw knew what it was. Call it ancestral memory, call it prophecy: she knew that it was something that wanted in.

 

"It can't get in here, can it?" her voice suddenly that of a child needing reassurance from a parent. She shook her head as soon as she'd said it, as if trying to dislodge the voice from her mouth. David answered anyway.

 

"I don't possess sufficient data to calculate a probability. But given the final fate of every Engineer we've encountered thus far, I don't believe this ship to offer sufficient protection."

 

Another thud proved him damnably right. It seemed louder. Almost in Shaw's ears. She stopped. Closed her eyes. Forced herself to breathe. Everything she needed, everything truly important, was with her. Even if some beast got in, the important things would live beyond her. The ring on her finger. The cross around her neck. They would go on, with her or without.

 

She opened her eyes. Calmly, methodically, she ran the flashlight up and down the walls. And saw it. Almost directly overhead, a break in the strange rib-like protrusions that ringed the corridor. It was ten feet straight up.

 

"Vickers?" she said through her com. "Bad news. The break is above me, too far to reach. No time to get to it. That thing is getting in. We'll have to defend ourselves."

 

"Unacceptable," Vickers said curtly. And the line went dead. So it seemed, she was so quiet. "David, I assume this _fucking_ ship has anti-gravity?"

  
"Yes, ma'am."

 

"Can I turn it on in your section of the ship? In reverse?"

 

"Hmm. I do believe so."

 

The loudest thud of all seemed to rock the ship like an explosion.

 

" _How?_ "

 

"You are at the head of the console? There will be a bullet nose shape to your immediate left."

 

"Hourglass with no ends!" Shaw clarified at the top of her lungs.

 

David smiled at the help. "Hold it down. I can do the rest by vocal command. Please turn the volume on your com to the maximum setting."

 

"Done."

 

" _Etu vlix cantib_ ," David enunciated promptly. "At least, I think that's—"

 

The world abruptly turned upside-down. Shaw made a wild grab for the walls as she was seemingly lifted up, as if in the palm of a giant, freefalling for a nauseous moment before impacting the ceiling—now the floor. It was a jarring hit; she saw stars. But she didn't wait a second for the pain to die down. She let it electrocute her body as she crawled to the break, grabbed the two bony parts, and forced them together. The moment they touched, a blue glow knitted them together and the fillings in her teeth were shaking.

 

"Press the pear shape a meter down the console if you still wish to go into orbit," David said, voice muffled from landing flat on his face.

 

Shaw felt her stomach lurch and knew they were airborne. The pounding cut off immediately, the last echo of it dying away. She sobbed in relief. Not for herself. For Janek, for Chance, for Ravel, Millburn, Fifield, Ford… Charlie. Even Weyland, the selfish old bastard. They were dead. They were gone, and she wasn't. She wouldn't be joining them. Not today. It sounded so simple, but it was such a precious thing to know. The most important thing.

 

"If it's not too much trouble," David said, having tongued himself onto his ear, "I might ask that someone secure me before restoring normal gravity. I think that last bump damaged the parts of my memory core relating to pre-Columbian cultures."

 

* * *

 

 

Shaw walked back to the bridge holding David in both hands. It had occurred to her that David was playing on her sympathies, but she could afford to be compassionate. She couldn't afford to be anything else. Her legs were rubbery, and on the giant-sized steps, she sat down on the edges and dropped down. The third time, she just sat there, David's head in her lap, looking up at her. She wasn't sobbing anymore, but her chest was heaving, her lungs working like bellows.

 

Under her, David's face screwed up. It took her a moment to realize he was trying to look sympathetic. She giggled; obviously some wires had gotten crossed. Setting off again, she held David ahead of her like a shield.

 

She came to the bridge. Vickers had finally taken off her environment suit, the bulk of it set neatly in a doorway like a suit of armor on display. Shaw set David down on the console, ruffling his hair as she passed.

 

"We are now in stable geosynchronous orbit," David announced, sounding like he might start whistling any moment. "The ship indicates no sign of alien entry, besides us of course. Feel free to take your time discerning your next course of action. I'm certain you'll need it."

 

Vickers was in the corridor to the observation deck, stripped down to T-shirt and trousers. Sweat covered her body and the neat part of her hair was rustled, with a tuft escaping from her braid and poking nearly vertical. She looked like Shaw felt.

 

Her flask was on the ground in front of her, tipped over, empty.

 

"I felt like I was suffocating," Vickers explained, wiping the sweat from her eyes and having it immediately replaced. Shaw pulled a tissue from one of the hundred cleverly concealed compartments in her trousers and mopped at Vickers's face. The woman was shaking. Some of the sweat was tears. She'd managed to hold back all but a few from her left eye. Shaw wiped them away all the same.

 

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Meredith went on, voice chipped like it'd been through a hailstorm, not looking at Shaw. Maybe that made it easier. "We get here, we find nothing, I hold my father's hand as he dies. We say _goodbye_ —and I didn't even get that."

 

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth said.

 

Now Vickers looked at her. "I want to go _home._ I want to look at spreadsheets and go on corporate retreats and send memos. That's what I do. I'm good at it. I have… plans and action documents and budgets…

 

Elizabeth put her hand on Meredith's shoulder until it stopped shaking.

 

"We can go home," she said. "Let's go home."

 

Vickers nodded and Shaw stood, but when she opened her hand Vickers took it, holding on. She was still nodding, and Shaw realized it was to herself. She stopped when she realized she was doing it.

 

Do you suppose," she began, her voice on a tight leash once more, "that if the Engineers had never left their… graffiti on Earth, Weyland wouldn't have become obsessed with meeting them?"

 

"It's a possibility," Shaw conceded.

 

"He would've died at home. In bed. Me at his side," Vickers pressed on. Sounding like she liked the idea.

 

Shaw nodded as much as she dared.

 

Vickers looked her in the eye. "Fuck it. Let's go say hi."

 

* * *

 

 

Shaw left Vickers in the observation deck, reapplying her make-up and straightening her hair. Everyone had their coping mechanisms.

 

David smiled brightly when he saw her come onto the bridge. "Allow me to speculate: we're setting a course for Paradise?" He took in Shaw's quizzical expression. "Not Earth, no; the Engineers' homeworld. It's what their word for it translates to. I only just realized."

 

Shaw nodded wearily. "Lay in a course. Get us underway."

 

"I rather knew you had more will than was evident. Ms. Vickers is imposing, certainly, but you're somewhat akin to the palm tree that survives a hurricane while a skyscraper falls. You know that it's better to bend than it is to break."

 

"She's not broken," Shaw replied, steepling her arms on the console. Her eyes fixed on the port David had said he could be connected to, her mind already picturing the holographic star map, the beginning of the journey. After all this, it filled her with a tempered, brittle kind of excitement. "Neither of us are."

 

"Ah. Then you have her consent for this enterprise? I was just thinking that if she'd been rendered unconscious, by whatever means, I could be of great assistance transporting her if my body were returned to operational status."

 

Shaw gave him a look. A half-smile. "Shut up, David."

**Author's Note:**

> Confession time: This was a WIP I started after the movie was released, but never got around to finishing. After seeing the prompt on the Yuletide pinch hit, I was inspired to finish it, but some *thoughtful pinch-hitter jerk* (I said in jest) took the fill-in. Oh well, it's a Yuletide treat now. It was only about eight hundred words long when I picked it up again, so the vast majority is tailored for Yuletide. The finished product is close-ish to my original plot bunny, although that started out as a Vickers/Shaw fic, and the recipient said she didn't want femslash, so now it's just friendship/possible pre-slash(?). I had originally thought of having it so long stretches of the story would be told during the "U-boat"'s voyage, with intermittent hypersleep and more time for Elizabeth to mourn and move on from Charlie, but with the timeframe of the story as is, there's no way she'd have a romantic interest in anyone. So, heck, rec it to your friends as Shaw/David pre-het, it's about as accurate.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for the motivation to get off my ass and put this fic to good use, Beckymonster, and I hope you enjoy.


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